Visit South Walton, in partnership with Friends of South Walton Sea Turtles Volunteer Beach Ambassador Team, hosted the 2022 International Coastal Cleanup on Saturday, September 17th from 9:00 – 11:00 am. A host team of 28 Volunteer Beach Ambassadors and 285 Volunteers covered 5 main beach sites across South Walton.
At an average of 2 hours per person, Walton County citizens donated approximately 530 hours of their time to clean up our beautiful beaches.
Listed below are the numbers for the Top Ten Items collected from our beaches:
#1 Cigarette Butts: 855
#2 Small Plastic Pieces/Particles: 497
#3 Plastic Bottle Caps: 523
#4 Food Wrappers: (candy, chips, etc) 489
#5 Foam Pieces: 331
#6 Straws/Stirrers: 220
#7 Other Plastic/ Elastic Bands: 215
#8 Metal Bottle Caps: 120
#9 tobacc0 Products: 116
#10 Beverage Bottles: 126
Friends of South Walton Sea Turtles (FOSWT) ICC Director Christina Cabral said, “It is truly impressive how our small coastal community consistently demonstrates a true commitment to the environment. Walton County participants should feel proud of their contribution to the world’s largest volunteer effort to remove and record trash collected from local lakes, waterways, beaches, and the ocean. With each piece of trash, collected on International Coastal Cleanup Day, we make a difference in our environment – and our beautiful Gulf waters see the difference too.”
“A special thanks goes to Volunteer Beach Ambassadors (VBAs) who hosted the five beach access sites. They tirelessly managed registration, shirt distribution and trash data collection. They also used the opportunity to share their passion and knowledge about keeping our beaches #CleanDarkFlat.”
Visit South Walton and The Friends of South Walton Sea Turtles would like to thank all of the site captains and their host team for a job well done, the citizens that gave of their time and effort to volunteer to cleanup South Walton Beaches, and Christy Gibson, Manager of the Visit South Walton Visitor Center, and her team for providing the Octopus themed ICC t-shirts to all of our volunteers. It was another GREAT International Coastal Cleanup for South Walton.
As a special note, we would love to work with groups next year ahead of the event to pre register participants and provide supplies for their section of beach. Visit www.friendsofswturtles.org to learn more.
Author: SWal Life
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